So not to beat a dead horse I’m writing this blog post, mostly because I’ve been harassed into it by many friends in second life
First lets focus on what a second life birthday party is about. It started in year two of linden lab virtual world as a celebration of what had started as a idea and turned into a 3d virtual world with user created content and events. it was a giant thank you party to those who had started the world and a celebration of where it was going. These parties were hosted by the lindens on various regions till they made special regions just for the celebration.
Each party developed a theme of sorts a common idea that linked most of the event together as a community. An of course a giant birthday cake. One that was so large it required the space of four regions to fit on. Now that’s a big cake. It also included Will Webb’s time capsule the past history of the world created where people shared note cards and well wishes and gifts some at the time were really cutting edge in the start. And people like Will kept the capsule safe and protected even till this day he still holds them safe and sound except for the first one that is currently located under the basement in governor lindens mansion on the mainland.
It was a event where in the business world you would call a stock holders meeting everyone was welcomed and made to feel a part. There were speeches and talks and classes and promotions of other communities and of course music and fun on anything from two to five stages plus those folks who brought their own.
There were also bad things that happened artists upset about policy’s and rules who felt they didn’t apply to them or were being censored over the years. People complaining about huge amounts of lag. Crashing more times than most ever did just trying to sit and listen to a talk or dance at a dj stage. The list can go on and on about both good and bad parts of a sl#b events from to big to to small to just about anything you can think of.
I had the pleasure of being a coordinator for the last official linden hosted event sl8b and to work with some really great people. My role was to design a place for this event and lay it out and map it. And when your in the high 20+ region counts that’s more than one person can do. Thankfully we had some great passionate volunteers who helped with everything from getting hundreds of slurls to walking the sims checking for proper settings. And thank god for the linden moles who worked tirelessly on making sidewalks and paths and sim crossings function. And to some of those great volunteers Rails Bailey, Dev Chaos, Diana Renoir, dmom2k, honour, dawny and the list can go on.And to the lindens who kept the sims up as the event started an the influx went from 20 people on the sims to almost 500 in minutes then 1000 and trust me they worked hard keeping the sims running even if the lag was off the charts.
I had the task of finding content creators for large scale parts of the event. This year I had chosen Paige Raven and KT sakuima to be the stage builders and we choose Tao Mistwalker to take over the duties of head baker and they did things on a scale that were so impressive. KT made a giant clockwork stage as best I can call it with a huge gear and a moving platform floating on the sea. Paige made a small village with houses and a mayors office and stores full of free gifts. We had a team designed and maintained by a resident that did a full circuit of all the regions automatically and gave you information about each space and what it was and who’s creation you were seeing as you rode by.
My fellow resident organizer Doctor Gascigone is for lack of better words a superhero running for days on little sleep managing people, stages, complaints and lag issues and working hand in hand with our linden counterparts. He is truly a master event planner in second life who doesn’t always get noticed or thanked but a man who does so much for the world we all love that he should be appreciated for his tireless effort and ability to smile and laugh while the world crashes around all of us. And then work on rebuilding it better than before.
Sadly my real life took over just before thee event was to start so KT stepped in and took over my slack and pulled the rope with Doc and others as well to make a great event happen.
So now this year with the end of hosted parties I know many people are sad and upset and want to bring it back and have been all over twitter and Facebook saying someone should do something the lab should make it happen or give us land and let us run it again. But that isn’t where the world we
enjoy is heading. So I say this think about for Americans the forth of July we all celebrate it every city has a party or event towns get together and watch fireworks. Together but separate. Globally we all celebrate new years around the clock face again together but separate.
So I think all we need is for one land Barron to gift the world a place for a kiosk where people can find events and direct tp to them and still allow us to celebrate separate but together.
This is where we make a choice on where our world is going to be.

I want to one more time thank the great volunteers too many to mention them all by name for their past work and friendship and I hope one day we will all be wearing ugly shirts and fighting the lag monster and crashing together as we have a fight in a giant blueberry pie.